Every visit with my mom continues to be an adventure. Earlier this week I was planning to visit her, but then the wonderful activities director at the memory care facility sent me these beautiful pictures of Mom laughing and smiling while shopping at a “boutique” and I decided that I didn’t want to show up and sully her day. She was beaming from ear-to-ear with her new costume jewelry. Bling bling! Seeing her looking so relaxed and free was an emotional moment for all of us. It brought relief to my dad and the rest of us to see true joy in her expression. We’ve known that she’s been settling in and participating in the activities, but these pictures showed true, unbridled happiness.
It's hard to imagine when looking at these pictures that, even after 8 months since we moved her to care, my visits with her still elicit such pain and anger. I fear that may never change. Visits have gotten better, all things considered, but they come with a sense of dread on my part not knowing which version of my mom will be waiting for me when I arrive. Some days she’s neutral, some days she’s sad, and other days she’s downright pissed off at me.
Navigating all of this is such a steep learning curve, and one tactic that I’m honing is quickly changing the subject. Improvisation is key. I referred to it as “look, there’s an eagle,” but Chad told me that it’s more like I’m throwing glitter. Given the love of bling I share with my mom and other women in the family, I decided that was a very fitting description.
So my sister and I arrived on Friday for a visit fully prepared to throw some glitter. Driving over to the facility, we formulated a gameplan spit-balling some topics that we could bring up if needed. We walked in and my mom said hello to Shannon and then quickly turned to me and said, “It’s your fault I’m here. Management told me that you put me here and you’re the only one who can get me out.” Needing some glitter, stat, we said, “Hey, Mom, you looked like you had so much fun shopping earlier this week. Why don’t you show us your new stuff?” With that, we headed off to her room.
And then we instantly needed more glitter because she couldn’t find her “16-carat diamond” ring. She had hidden it away to keep it from getting stolen (nothing is being stolen) and couldn’t find her brilliant hiding spot. We proceeded to check all the drawers and then kept changing the subject as fast as we could as her obsession to find the ring took hold. Glitter, glitter, glitter.
As we went through her drawers, we pulled out this adorable sequined hedgehog that we had not seen before. Asking her about it, she lit up exclaiming how cute it was and kind of hugging it to her chest. Handing it to me, I could not have imagined that my next move would’ve been upsetting. Much to her horror, I ran my hand over the sequins to make it change colors. She exclaimed that it was going to ruin it if I did that, so I quickly began pushing the sequins back to their original positions as fast as I could. Crisis averted!
Still not locating her ring and watching her descend into panic over it, we once again threw some sparkling confetti and said that dinner smelled really good and we should find out what the chef was preparing. Immediately, we headed off to the dining room. Thankfully, the chef was making what sounded like a delicious dinner with fresh cookies for dessert. Cookies are my mom’s love language, so she was pretty excited about that. Her humor still shows through at times and she said without an ounce of sarcasm in her voice, “Well, you know I don’t really like cookies.” That gave us both a laugh.
With no more glitter left to give, we decided it would be best to end our visit on a high note. Cookies saved the day. And I’m very happy to report that the fabulous director texted me yesterday to confirm that they located the ring.
Restocking glitter for another day.
P.S. In my last post, I concluded that I was hoping to go from Fixer to Fabulous by installing cable with a direct line to HGTV in her room. I can say without equivocation that my brilliant solution to all of life’s problems with her has not been resolved by No Demo Reno. It is helping the staff calm her down at times, but, when left to her own devices, she’s unable to work the remote. I bought a “simple remote” specially designed for people with memory issues that only has a few buttons and Chad spent hours programming this so-called simple remote to communicate with her TV. Apparently, the instructions are printed incorrectly and it took a few calls/emails with the company to solve the problem. But MAJOR KUDOS to Chad for his determination and grit to make it happen.
